Metrics are important to every business. Whether measuring customer engagement with click-through rates or net promoter scores, each metric establishes a benchmark for an organization to evaluate its business better. Metrics are all numbers or values, and understanding a picture through a sheet of raw numbers can only deliver so much insight. Visualizations are pivotal as they augment and reinforce decision-making by representing numerical metrics graphically. To that end, Power BI is a versatile software that offers multiple data analytics and visualization services for their business metrics. From pie diagrams to scatter plots, timelines to line charts, businesses can visualize any dataset in any way they wish with Power BI. Let’s look at Power BI data visualizations an organization can use for business purpose mapping.
Power BI data visualizations
Power BI data visualizations can be applied to all kinds of business reports. It also allows enterprises to pin these visualizations to Power BI dashboards for quick visibility or summarization. Below are all the Power BI data visualizations a business can leverage.
1. Area charts Power BI allows businesses to create basic and stacked area charts. They are based on basic line charts, with each line filled with colors of the respective data they represent—on the horizontal and vertical axes. These charts are best used to highlight changes in a metric over time and the end value totals towards the end of the period.
2. Bar and column charts If a business needs to look at peaking values across various items (or categories), the best visualization is the bar or column chart. This visualization is also suitable for comparisons between multiple categories for peak values.
3. Cards Cards are the ideal Power BI data visualization when there is a single metric in focus that a business wants to track, such as the North Star Metric. The card highlights one metric in a large font with its label underneath. These cards can have two formats: single-row or double-row.
4. Combo charts
Combo charts or combination charts are combined visualization in the form of lines and bars or columns. The line represents peak values, while the bars or columns represent milestones. These visualizations can have two Y-axes that represent multiple values in a single chart.
5. Decomposition trees Decomposition trees are AI visuals with complex data extensions. Businesses can view information across multiple vertical segments or dimensions of their operations, dependencies, and relationships. This visualization is best for ad-hoc possibility exploration and conducting root cause analysis. 
6. Donuts and pie charts Donut charts are similar to pie charts; the only difference is that the donut chart has a hole at the center. These visualizations work best when they represent parts of a whole on a single visual. For example, to visualize demographics based on ethnicity. 
7. Funnels Funnel charts are a graphical representation of cascading processes that must happen sequentially. The top (and the largest) funnel portion represents the largest percentage of the total. It then cascades downwards with the process progress. 
8. Gauge charts A gauge chart is a circular arc-like representation of a single metric that progresses towards a set milestone which is also represented on the arc. This visualization is helpful when businesses are tracking goals in numeric terms. 
9. Line charts Line charts are the ideal representation of a single metric as it changes over time. These are the most basic charts businesses use for comparative and performance monitoring purposes. For example, to track profits or losses quarter-on-quarter for an entire year.
10. KPIs and key influencers charts Key influencers are the contributing factors that help a business achieve a certain metric. This can be in percentages or any other unit. On the other hand, KPI is a single performance indicator metric that tells a business its progress towards a set, measurable goal. 
11. Maps Maps assist a business in visualizing metrics for spatial and geographical representations. This is ideal for organizations with multiple branches and a single-tracked goal. Maps can be used to visualize, for example, profits by branch across various locations.
12. Matrices Matrices are like tables, but they support more dimensions. While a table allows a business to represent data across two axes, a matrix incorporates more than two and enables the representation of more information for a bigger, better picture. 
Importance of data visualization
Data visualization is important to a business for the following reasons:
- Businesses can analyze data better, focus on the metrics that matter, and highlight trends for deeper insight. As a result, you can make business decisions more quickly.
- Humans process visual information quicker than textual information. Data visualization helps process business data faster for quick decision-making.
- Often, business data is unique to a situation and complicated. Visualization helps make the data more digestible and speeds up understanding.
PreludeSys makes Power BI visualizations easy
Power BI data visualizations empower a business to make its data and reports more presentable, understandable, and insightful. In addition, the software enables you to pin important metrics to Power BI interactive dashboards, allowing for better and quicker decision-making. With the help of the right implementation partners like PreludeSys, businesses can benefit from Power BI data visualization tools. To learn more about Power BI data visualization, its implementation, and its operation, visit PreludeSys.
